Darkling (20 page)

The whispers fade and I’m brought back into the present. I jerk away from Tristan and vomit. My senses are still ringing from the pain.
Dulled by the screams. I fall over and narrowly avoid my puddle of sick. My body isn’t working right now. Tristan’s horrible memory is still staining me like smoke.

He’s whimpering nearby. I work my jaw and get my ears to pop, but I am dizzy. And through it all, I hear Draven screaming my name. Then Tristan is screaming. Those horrible sounds when his life is being wrenched
from him. Because he’s giving up. He’s letting her take. I’ve had too many screams. I cover my ears and curl up.

T
he house is silent. I pull my hands away from my ears. I don’t know what happened to me. Dried tears are on my cheeks. My vomit is stinking a foot away. I’ve had enough. I had enough. I shut down for a while. I guess I played dead. I wipe any lingering bile off my lips. For a moment, I remember doing so as Tristan. But I’m not Tristan. That memory wasn’t mine. I killed Victoria. No.
Tristan
. Tristan killed Victoria. It’s him who’s trapped in a prison of fire and pain. Not me.

Then who am I? Willow? No, that’s just a name. It doesn’t mean anything. Just a word people call me. I find that funny. I don’t know who I am. Am I dead? Is this the Netherworld? Was I really killed at Sacrifice Rock? The stench of my vomit and my headache remind me that I am alive. I’m alone in the room.

I am worse than dead. I am mad. Tristan is mad. This house is mad. I think I’ve been half-crazy all along. Hearing the voices of the dead. Why couldn’t Scarlet hear them? Why couldn’t my mother? Only my grandmother. I wonder if she knew who she was as she fell. Was she just a name? An empty vessel for spirits to fill with their needs?

Why do I even bother to eat or drink? We all end up the same way.
Alone. Dead. Simpletons.

I look at the door. It’s still locked. Why was it locked?
To keep her out?

Draven.

Where is Draven? I shove myself up and feel nauseated again. Tristan… He doesn’t have a body anymore. Did he ever? Was Draven really here? Did I imagine him?

I creep over to the door and listen.
Nothing. No lights. I turn the key and open the door. It creaks as it moves. It’s shoving something. Broken glass. The lamp.

“Draven?”
I call. There is no answer.

Holding onto the railing, I head down the stairs one at a time. I know this is dangerous but I don’t think she can do much more to hurt me. Not with how I’m feeling right now. In the parlor, I use a burning twig to light a lamp. How these candles and lamps never run low, I don’t know. It’s all part of the madness.
All part of the nonsense that is death. The unraveling of rules. The breaking of barriers.

This room is empty. I bite my lip. What was I looking for? Why don’t I just leave?

The boy with the falcon. Yes, that’s who. He’s important to me. I see Lady’s face in my head and I stiffen. I feel like I’m waking up. Like I’m shrugging off the darkness and shadows and memories that have confused me into thinking that I’m not me. I am me. I am light. Tristan said it.

My heart begins to race. I don’t know how much time has passed. Draven was alone with her as she gained strength. I remember what she did to me with the pearls. Where is he?

I run into the dining room. Nothing. I check the kitchen. Empty. I’m about to run back and check upstairs when I notice a drop of blood on the ground. It’s shiny. It’s new.

Then I see another.
And another. There’s a trail. Hurrying after them, I find myself at the front door. I step outside. The crescent moon is back. Cold flakes melt against my bare arms and face. It’s snowing, but only lightly. In the lamplight, I can see that it hasn’t even stuck to the ground yet. Which is good, because if I look very carefully, I can see more drops of blood. Like rubies. Cold slips up the slit in my dress and numbs my feet.

It’s taking too long to hunt each drop down. I round a corner. He’s out here somewhere. Picking my way forward, I reach the back of the house. A spiked metal fence encompasses what I can only imagine was once Victoria’s rose garden. I follow the fence to a small gate and shove. The bushes are dead and black but still standing. The only spot of color is across from me. A solitary red rose, vibrant even from here.

As I step towards the rose, I notice a dark form below it. I know those long legs. I run.

Draven is slumped against a slab of rock. His hands are bound just above his head, to what I realize is a tombstone. Chains wrap around his torso, lashing him to the rock on top of Victoria’s grave. I set down the lamp and kneel beside him, touching his face. He’s breathing but cold.
Too cold.

He opens his eyes at my touch. I want to hug him to make him warmer but I see no way to undo the chains. He blinks dazedly and as he lifts his head, I see why. There is a hole in the side of his neck.
Glistening dark. Like someone chewed on him. I don’t want to hold the light any closer to the wound. I don’t want to see how bad it is.

“Draven…”

Something drips onto my hand. Blood. I look up and find the blooming rose glistening. It’s been painted red with Draven’s blood.

“Don’t you like it?” The sing-song voice startles me.

I whip my head around to spot none other than Victoria slinking out of the shadows. The shock of it makes me fall on my backside. The lamp is snuffed out.

In the moonlight, she looks just as she did in life.
Only fading. As if her colors and features are being filled in as fast as they’re dissolving. She’s still in her funerary shrouds, only she holds up the hem like a dress and has her veil over her hair, not her face. As if she was some ghoulish bride. She wipes blood off of her chin.

“I’ve always preferred red roses.”

She’s speaking to me. Not with whispers, but with her voice. Victoria died. I watched her. I felt Tristan’s hand move as he did it. Yet she licks the blood off the back of her hand then leans against her tombstone. Leans. She can only lean if she has a body.

Victoria arches a brow then looks down on herself. She holds up a piece of her shrouds, revealing too much thigh.

“What, this?” She lets it fall back onto place then crosses her wrists in front of her, leaning on her forearms as if we were gossiping.

“I have you to thank for it. You gave my husband back his strength.
His confidence. Just when I was growing so weak. You built him up enough so that when I fed, I could get this back.” She grabs her breasts. “I owe you such thanks.” Her expression darkens. “I’d give it to you if you weren’t a little whore.”

My lungs are growing cold as I pant.

Draven is now conscious enough to struggle. He winces as he tries to free his wrists. Victoria is smirking as she watches him. Then she saunters over.

“Not a bad looking boy.
A little skinny.” She grabs Draven by the hair and yanks his head back, causing him to cry out. “Is he yours?”

I narrow my eyes at her. I’m clenching my fists. My heart is racing. I regret not grabbing a weapon when I had the chance. But I never thought I’d face this.

She raises her brows. “No? Well then.” She straddles Draven. “Then you won’t mind me,” she simpers as she sits on him. She still has his head yanked at an angle and throws me a taunting look, as if this is some sort of revenge. “Or will you?”

With a freakish jerk, she tilts her head to the side and clamps down on the hole she’s already made in his neck. Draven screams. This
is
revenge. For touching her husband. For picking her rose without permission.

Something in me snaps. Like a flame bursting to life. I scream and leap. My shoulders ram into hers as I knock her aside. Her thin body lands beneath mine with a thump. I sit up to grab her neck then my knees hit the ground. She has disappeared.

A chuckle rises from behind me. I twist about. She’s there, licking the blood off her lips as she shakes with amusement. Draven is kicking as he squirms, trying to get out of the chains, his neck slick with blood. I don’t know what Victoria has become, but I know she’ll only slip away again if I try to harm the body she worked so hard to restore.

I grab onto Draven’s chains and yank. They only grow tighter. He yelps as his chest is constricted. I feel their lengths, hunting for their ends. There are none. How is this possible?

“What truths?” Victoria asks. “What laws of the earth exist after death?”

The chains around Draven yank and he squeaks. He can’t breathe. She’s controlling them.

“The living surround themselves with barriers but what do you really know about your world?”

She’s stepping closer to me. I’m on my knees, yanking on Draven’s chains. They’re so cold. He’s screwing his eyes shut. Victoria’s voice sounds like my mind.
The torment of a Listener. The torment of knowing that she’s right.

“Can you really trust anything?” she whispers in my ear.

I stop yanking. Draven’s throat is hissing, like he’s only getting thimblefuls of air. She’s right. No one can trust anything. Nothing’s stable. Nothing’s as it seems. I’m just a vessel. A name.

Victoria rests a cold hand on my shoulder. “That’s why we must take what we can while we can. There’s no point in giving back. Beauty is for the beholder.”

Chilling wind cuts through my hair, peppering me with snowflakes. It’s tearing up my eyes so I close them.

Tristan is hers. Now she is claiming me, as well.

We must take while we can because nothing is steadfast. Take, take, take. The back of my brain is burning. It’s tearing apart at the seams. I can’t hear Draven breathing anymore. Neither can I stop him from dying. I can’t stop anyone from dying. We all die. We all are forgotten. We all lose sense in the Netherworld. Bumbling simpletons who walk down hallways every night.

Even the most vibrant among us diminish.
Even Scarlet. Big sisters aren’t supposed to leave. But she did. She’s never coming back. I can’t change that. I can’t change anything. I am powerless. Fighting is no use. Living is so hard when we’re all dying. From the first breath we take. Much easier to give in. To live in darkness.

Then I hear it.
A whisper like wind in the trees on a summer’s night. Playful and dancing. There’s a weight on my other shoulder. Like a hand only without any pressure. My eyes are stilled closed. Victoria is on my right, wooing me. But I don’t need to open my eyes to know that my sister is on my left. Warmth spreads through me like sunlight. She’s hugging me. I smell apples. I smell Scarlet.

“I would’ve danced at your wedding,” she whispers in my mind. I can hear her voice clear as day.
Or dark as night. “You must dance for me.”

I lean to the left. The scent of apples intensifies. I couldn’t save her. I watched her die.
So much darkness. I am like Victoria. I want Scarlet to fill me. To live with her presence at my side forever.

“I am always with you,” she says. “And I am so proud of you. You’re my sister. You’re my sister. I love you.”

Scarlet is filling me with warmth. With blossoming strength. She’s filling me with something greater than the cold. Deeper than the darkness. It’s what made her laugh contagious. What made her eyes sparkle. What made her so enchanting. Love. Love so freely-given and unwavering that she wore it like magic.

I open my eyes. Victoria’s funerary shrouds flutter beside me. Something twinges in my mind.
Something important from Scarlet to unfold later. Draven is fighting. His lips are blue, he can barely breathe, and blood is pulsing from the wound in his neck. But he is fighting. His dark eyes are fixed on me. And in them I see hearths. And I know that Victoria is wrong.

I am no empty vessel. I am not just a name. I am a sister. I am loved. Loved is me.

I can feel Scarlet smiling. I can see her face in my mind. The chains in my hands are cold like Victoria. Though wind is still cutting across my face, hurting my eyes, I don’t blink as I gaze into Draven’s eyes.

“I will not take,” I gasp. Victoria’s hand on my shoulder tightens. I let go of the chains and grab Draven’s limp hand. “I will gather. I will receive. And I will give. I will give so much.”

Scarlet’s strength is now burning inside me. Like a whirlwind. Victoria’s fingernails are drawing blood as I slowly look up to her. I may be young, but I’m not Tristan. I’m not hungry for acceptance. I already have it. I am not hers.